Taikong's fish ... may well be the world's first genetically modified house pets...

Word has traveled fast among aquarium enthusiasts. "If they can actually do this, it will be the greatest thing since popped corn ... There's a lot of pent-up demand" for fluorescent fish in the U.S. ... [there may be] a day when people will select their own color combinations. "My gosh, if they ever made one that was red, white, and blue, every Marine in the country would buy one."

The reaction in Europe, where resistance to genetic modification runs high, is different. "Fish shops in the U.K. won't touch them with a barge pole ... There's a very strong anti-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the U.K."

Transgenic zebrafish go on sale next month to aquarium hobbyists across the United States, but not in California unless Yorktown Technologies of Austin wins an exemption to a recent state ban on lab-engineered aquatic species. Today the California Fish and Game Commission is expected to take up the issue Sacramento after state biologists concluded that the fish poses no threat to the aquatic environment of California.

Yorktown Technologies plans a nationwide rollout for the fish Jan. 5 and expects them to be hot sellers at $5 each.moreCare Sheet